The Government Accountability Office has recommended that the U.S. Army establish metrics to determine if contracts awarded to companies meet cost, schedule and performance goals.

GAO said in a report published Thursday the military branch should also record rationales for all decision and develop measurable objectives to assess the effects of organizational changes on contracting operations.

The government watchdog agency found that the Army obligated more than $74 billion in contract funds during 2016 to procure aircraft, ground combat vehicles, radios, ammunition and missiles as well as logistics, administrative, healthcare and support services.

GAO also determined that Army leaders have not used consistent processes to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the service branch’s contracting operations.

The agency added that five major organizational changes that affect Army contracting operations occurred last year and the military branch has not yet assessed the effects of such changes.

The Professional Services Council has urged leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee to mark up a bipartisan bill that would establish a source of funds for federal agencies’ information technology modernization efforts.

PSC said Wednesday it wrote a letter to committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) and Ranking Member Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) after White House senior adviser Jared Kushner publicly stated that the Trump administration actively supports the Modernizing Government Technology Act.

David Berteau, PSC president and CEO, said MGT Act will help agencies replace legacy IT systems; mitigate cybersecurity risks; and establish IT working capital funds that could accelerate the adoption of modern technologies across the federal government.

Berteau added the bill would establish a centralized Technology Modernization Fund administered by the General Services Administration and form a Technology Modernization Board to assess and make recommendations for agencies’ proposals.

President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal includes $228 million in seed money for the Technology Modernization Fund.

Sens. Steve Daines (R-Montana), Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) introduced the upper chamber’s version of MGT Act in April while the House of Representatives approved its version of the bill through a voice vote held in May.

The General Services Administration‘s Data Center Optimization Initiative Program Management Office has released a report to share lessons learned on cloud transformation efforts for the data center community.

Dan Pomeroy, director of the DCOI PMO, said in a post published June 14 that the whitepaper tackles findings and guidance on four cloud computing adoption topics including business drivers, migration considerations, organizational readiness and organizational impact.

DCOI PMO offers guidance on the federal tools and resources that can help agencies transition to the cloud and utilize cloud computing capacities not available in current information technology service offerings, noted Pomeroy.

Pomeroy added that the DCOI PMO also offers research assistance to help agencies mitigate cloud challenges.

The Government Accountability Office has asked Congress for $618.2 million to fund operations at the federal watchdog agency in fiscal 2018.

GAO said Wednesday the funds would help the agency maintain a staffing level of 3,100 full-time employees to address the agency’s need for increased attention in areas such as improper government payments, tax gap and the impact of rapid science and technology development on policy.

The agency added it plans to offset spending with $27.5 million in reimbursements from rental income and program and financial audits, which will lead to a net budget request of $590.7 million.

GAO’s efforts in FY 2016 resulted to approximately $63 billion in financial benefits to the federal government as well as more than 2,071 recommendations that led to 1,234 program and operational updates across the government, the report noted.

The agency also published 697 reports and responded to requests from 95 percent of Congress’ standing full committees in FY 2016.

The Federal Aviation Administration will establish a new aviation rule-making committee tasked to develop standards on how to identify and track unmanned aerial vehicles.

FAA said Wednesday that panel will consist of stakeholders from the aviation community, unmanned aircraft industry, industry member organization, researchers and standards groups.

The committee will help the agency identify, categorize and recommend emerging technologies for remote UAS tracking and identification.

It will also evaluate the affordability and feasibility of available technologies and how such systems can help meet requirements of air traffic control and law enforcement organizations.

FAA added the group will also provide recommendations to support efforts toward beyond visual line of sight drone flights.

NASA and Italy’s space agency have agreed to jointly launch a mission that will explore cosmic X-rays beginning in 2020.

Robert Lightfoot, acting administrator of NASA, and Roberto Battiston, president of the Italian space agency, signed an agreement at the Paris Air Show to establish the terms of cooperation under the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer mission, NASA said Tuesday.

The IXPE mission aims to deploy three telescope systems designed to measure the polarization of cosmic X-rays and help both agencies discover their origins as well as interactions with matter and gravity in space.

NASA will contribute the X-ray telescopes and facilities to support end-to-end X-ray calibration and science operations under the program.

Italy’s space agency will provide three polarization-sensitive X-ray detectors that will serve as IXPE’s “eyes” as well as access to the agency’s equatorial ground station in Malindi, Kenya.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has been selected to conduct spacecraft and mission integration efforts for the mission and will collaborate with the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics to operate the flight system.

Other IXPE program partners include the Stanford University, McGill University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.